1952 The Nevada Tax Commission members agreed by unanimous vote to allow reporters to sit in and report on its voting sessions, meetings in which they made key decisions. Previously, voting had been done behind closed…

1950-1953 During the 1950 federal hearings on organized crime, two Northern California gamblers — Walter “Big Bill” Melburn Pechart and David “Dave” Nathan Kessel — were uncooperative, according to the questioners. They were Senators Estes…

1930s-1952 Salvatore “Tar Baby” Orester Terrano is one of numerous criminals whom Nevada gambling regulators approved to own a casino in the state. In May 1947, the tax commission granted the Northern Californian, then 43,…

1956 When auditors for Nevada reviewed its books, they discovered the El Rancho casino on the Las Vegas Strip had underpaid the requisite gambling taxes over nine quarters by $39,000 ($350,500 today). Despite the claims…

1955-1966 Harry Chon, licensed operator of the gambling operations at the Old Cathay Club* in Reno, Nevada, found himself in an uncomfortable spot, under pressure from two parties, in 1956. The story begins about a…

1958-1959 (Part I ran last week. If you missed it, it’s available here.) The Nevada Tax Commission withdrew the gambling license of the New Star casino’s operators — Brent Mackie and Kenneth Henton — in July…

1958 Casino workers at the New Star allegedly were caught in flagrante delicto. In April, a gambling detective — Michael MacDougall from New York — conducted a statewide, in-person survey of various gambling entities upon…

1954 Due to the 1953 scandal in Wells, Nevada, the state tax commissioners in June 1954 prohibited open gambling in the town of Jackpot, just south of the Nevada-Idaho border along U.S. Route 93. They worried…

1951-1952 Gambling boomed in Las Vegas, Nevada immediately following Senator Estes Kefauver and his committee’s nationwide investigation into organized crime. The 27 hearings the group conducted in 14 United States cities in 1950 and 1951…

1953-1955 In fall 1953, John “Fat Jack” Galloway was playing the card game, 21, at Leo Quilici’s hotel-casino, the El Rancho Hotel, in Wells, Nevada. Fat Jack himself, in his early 40s, was the operator…

1954 A brouhaha over bingo made it a memorable year for gambling at Lake Tahoe. To lure as many tourists as possible into their casinos, numerous operators offered big-ticket prizes for winners at summer’s end…